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for the jubilees are understood to have been soon neglected, and the concentrating principle of selfinterest would therefore acquire a double force. Perhaps we may date it from the introduction of the kingly government, for the state of Judea, under the judges, was a kind of aristocracy, where property was preserved by the balance of power among the contending parties, and the erection of a divine dictatorship. But when kings appeared, they felt wants; their favourites wished for wealth;" and the invasion of property, which was introduced by the sovereign, extended to the subject, till the captivity; after which, the original agrarian law seems to have been entirely laid aside, and a new division, according to circumstances, took place. There were several things, however, in the political state of Judea, which enabled property to have an effect on character. Thus, the equal division of property, while it lasted, would produce an attachment to the soil, because their residence was their own; had descended to them through a long train of ancestors; and was rendered sacred by the shades of their fathers, and the endearing recollections of early youth. While being but small in extent, they would naturally be forced to make the most of it for their family, and would acquire those industrious and virtuous habits, which competence without luxury naturally produces. Nor could patriotism and piety fail to spring from, or be fostered by, their peculiar institutions; and it would have been happy for them, if the wise provisions of heaven had been observed, which were intended to render them a distinct people. They would have ceased to imitate the evil practices of the heathen, and might thus have avoided those national calamities, which have so much attracted the attention of historians.

a Ezek. xlvi. 16-18.

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